Her Mother's Eyes
by Maphiko
Summary: Before Rinoa had met Squall, before she had joined the Timber Owls, what was her life like? What happened to her mother? Did she really die? R&R please!


Her Mother's Eyes  
By Sephiroth 4000  
  
It started with a movie.  
  
As movies went, it wasn't a terribly good one.  The lighting was shoddy, the costumes worn, the dialogue laughable.  Not for nothing was it on extremely late at night.  If it hadn't been from the fact that her seven year old daughter had once again had trouble sleeping, Julia would not have been up watching it.  But watch it she did, idly stroking Rinoa's thick black hair, trying to coax her little girl into a deeper sleep, so she could get her off to bed without Rinoa waking up.  
  
And then the Sorceress' Knight bounded onto the screen, resplendent in armour, armed with a gunblade.  
  
Stiffening in surprise, she gently set down her daughter's head on the rose brocaded couch, and leaned forward, eyes intent on the Knight's face.  Blue-black hair brushed his armoured shoulders, and he swung his blade in an extravagant gesture as he battled an alarmingly realistic Red Dragon. Green eyes flashed in excitement, fear and anger.  
  
She clapped a hand over her mouth, and slid to the floor, heart swelling within her chest.  It beat with odd irregular jerks, and tears stung her eyes.  
  
It couldn't be true.  He was _alive_ after all these years.  He hadn't. . .he had survived. . .  
  
Her heart and soul singing with happiness, Julia _scrambled_- she who was so careful to look nothing less then graceful – scrambled to her feet in her haste.  She had to find him.  The movie had been made in Trabia; she could catch a train to Timber and from there travel to Fisherman's Horizon, and then take the flight to Trabia. . .  
  
Hurrying away to fling clothes into a suitcase, she did not spare a single glance for the small girl curled up fast asleep on the couch.

* * * * *

  
At first they thought she had just gone out.  She wasn't missed until her husband awoke the next morning, finding his wife gone, and his little girl abandoned.  However, it wasn't unknown for her to simply take an early morning walk, and sometimes she couldn't shift Rinoa back to her bedroom without waking her, so left her on the couch.   But days, then weeks, then months passed, and still the young girl remained motherless, the husband bereft.  
  
Just left.  As if he was such a monster that she couldn't face him for a divorce.  Up and went.    
  
It left General Caraway a shattered man.  His love had not only gone, she had disappeared, taking his pride and affection with her.  For his daughter all he had was duty, for as much as he tried, whenever he looked at her, all he could see was her mother's eyes, eyes he had adored so.  Indeed, the girl was the very spit of her lost mother, the same dark hair, the same creamy complexion, the same dark slanting eyes.  Her mother's eyes.  
  
Years passed, and a girl slowly changed, growing older, more mature, and looked ever more like her mother.  He tried, oh he tried so hard it hurt Rinoa to see it, but still all he could see was her mother.  Even as she understood, she grew to hate him for it.  Couldn't he see that she was more his daughter, then the mother who had so easily abandoned her?  Why couldn't he see?  
  
And as she grew, she could feel something was not right.  Her father was a high ranking General in the largest army in the world.  Yet the mobilisations around Deling, the forced conscriptions on every man, five years of his life was taken to serve Galbadia; it couldn't be right.  Especially since there was nobody who could threaten Galbadia.  Balamb? Too small.  Esthar?  Seventeen years of silence, and no sign of them _ever_ breaking it.  Dollet?  The remnant of a broken empire.  SeeD?  Them?  They were mercenaries.  Very expensive too; no nation could raise enough money to hire enough of them to make any real difference.  
  
So why. . .  
  
And why did her distant father consult with President Deling to forge ever more harsh policies?  
  
Eventually one day. . .she too left.  Ironically, she fled to Timber, unknowingly following her mother's footsteps.  Timber was the last place Julia Heartilly Caraway had been seen.  But she was not as cruel as her mother.  She left him some word of her.    
  
He came home to an empty house, his only greeting a thin sheet of pastel paper sealed in it's matching envelope.  Unsealing it, eyes narrowed, he read:  
  
_Daddy,   
What you're doing is wrong.  And I will stop what Galbadia is doing as best as I can.  
  
Why don't you care anymore?  I've read the newspapers about you.  You used to resist the idea of invasion.  You used to try to use your influence with the President to stop all the killing.  But you don't care anymore.  
  
When I was younger, you told me Mom had died.  But she didn't, did she?  From things people have said, a hint here, a hint there, I know that she left you.  Is that why you don't care anymore?  
  
I can't help you; you won't let me.  She hurt you so, and I look too much like her, I've seen the photos.  So I'm going to meet up with people who I can help.  Don't try to find me.  
  
Your daughter,  
Rinoa Heartilly.  
  
_She had signed with her mother's name.  He realised straight away that she had done it not in rejection of him; but because he had rejected her.  Finally he just smiled, hands clenching hard on the paper bearing her fine lines of script.  His smile was bitter, but was touched with more then a hint of pride.  
  
It looked like his daughter had inherited more then her mother's eyes.  
  
  
_Author's Note: I know, it was a bit of a weird fic, but it jumped into my head and wouldn't go away.  I was just thinking though, a lot of people have written about 'that summer' with Rinoa and Seifer, yet I haven't read a single fic that deals with her previous life.  Rinoa isn't really a favourite character, but I felt she was a bit neglected.  Like my other fic dealing with Yuffie, who isn't really a favourite character either.  But I couldn't help it!  This was pretty short for me, and odd.  A little bit of a different style too, at least that's what I think.  Um, sorry, I'm babbling.  You might say this is a bit of a spinoff of my AU fic, Echoes of Time, but I think that you can read it as a purely FF8 fic.  So yeah.  E-mails to Sephiroth_4000@hotmail.com Domo arigatou gozaimasu for reading this peculiar piece of fiction._


End file.
